Portugal is the country that had the largest opportunity of the last twenty years: it attracted essentially la crème de la crème of tech. Incredible place. It would have had all the conditions to be the #1 place in Europe for many if only it had been able to offer a reliable system to incorporate and run companies. Unfortunately, it made doing business close to impossible and uncertain. While allowing mass migration to arrive with no prior authorization (tot. 1.5M, 14% of the population), it decided to cut the NHR and replace it with the IFICI regime as implemented today: complex, based on express authorization and, contrary to its original intention, in reality usable only by later-stage entrepreneurs.
With a mildly efficient system, or an EU Inc. and/or a less convoluted IFICI, the stretch Lisbon–Cascais would be the European Bay Area, with thousands of new companies building the future from Portugal. This would have meant, among others, allowing thousands of young Portuguese to thrive in their own country instead of leaving for London or anywhere else to make it.
Unfortunately it won't be the case. In terms of real estate, I might be completely wrong: but it will keep rising because of very weird supply-demand logic, against all odds and very reasonable predictions. Golden visa has never been the issue behind real estate price spikes. Chances are Portugal is going to be like Ryanair: everyone frustrated, but will keep “selling tickets”.
Total wealth of US billionaires = $5.5 trillion.
If we confiscated all of their wealth, we'd only be able to run the federal government for about 10 months.
Perhaps our problem isn’t how much billionaires have but how much politicians spend.
h/t @antonydavies
"We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy our economy." - Chris Hedges